The Philosophy of Public Reason

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Abstract

To contemporary African politics, academic freedom is at best irrelevant and, at worst, conjures up images of political opposition. This explains the fate of many African universities and academics. Current Western jurisprudence has done no better. Academic freedom is consistently ascribed to certain political systems or cultures. Under this utilitarian calculus, academic freedom can be regulated according to the interests of politics or the market. This is the point of departure in this article. It suggests that the current understanding of academic freedom, which finds academic freedom a servant of politics and economics (both from the rightist and leftist perspective) is nothing but the variegation of error. If this is true, how therefore can we understand academic freedom, and what underlies its philosophical foundation? The alternative framework I advance suggests the proper understanding of academic freedom lies in its grasp as an idea of public reason, so to speak. This indeed, is the theory of academic freedom.